I didn’t actually even know this book existed until C randomly found it at the library. And I’m afraid it’s another one of those sequels that doesn’t quite live up to its original.

By the metrics, it fails – the only named character is Rosie herself, so it can’t pass Bechdel, and the characters are all animals so there’s no real diversity possible.

All that aside, if it weren’t a sequel to a really very clever picture book I guess it would be a totally respectable book in its own right. It does the same thing the original did in terms of having a lot going on in the illustrations that isn’t addressed in the text, which, in my opinion, is a hallmark of a great picture book. The reader can see the chick for which Rosie is hunting, and the chick barely escapes several dangers that are unaddressed by the text.

It was fun to read and C enjoyed hunting for the chick on each page and talking about the various dangers. But honestly, it lacks the simplicity of the original. The original Rosie book is basically just a single sentence which is buoyed up by the cleverness of the illustrated story. This book, on the other hand, doesn’t have the streamlined feel of the first one.

Like I said, as a book in its own right, it’s perfectly fine, but as a sequel to the very simple and very clever “Rosie’s Walk” it feels to me a bit like it falls short.